A Week Of Journaling

This started out as a gelli print page. I marked the circles and painted around them. Then added journaling.  This was the first time I made a gelli print right into my journal. I like pulling out just part of the designs.  Its a fun way to tackle a page when you don't know what to do with the background.

I worked on this page in a similar way only with rectangles.  Then on the painted out parts I added maps pieces. I used distress stain to color the maps a little.  Then drew the hand and some words about community.  I did it in 21 Secrets class that was really fun.

This page has oil pastels in the rectangles and scraps of gelli printed papers adde on top and in  other spots. There were several layers of color in the oil pastel areas which I then scratched through with a pointy tool. That was fun as it exposed other colors.

This one was a spray ink page background.  I drew the face on top with marker and then used sennelier oil pastels on the face.  She definitely is a purple lady.  This one is for you Janet.

This on is a take off on the idea of a tree ring.  I saw this on the net somewhere just don't remember where.  It was fun to do but the next time I might plan out what I am gong to write before I begin.

Linking to Paint Party Friday and Art Journal Every Day.

Morning art.

Morning art is the best at least that is what I am thinking today.  I went to the studio the first thing, before breakfast, before getting dressed and all that jazz.  Cleaned up a little and then made this page. Like doing morning pages but only with art instead of words. A great start to the day.

Supplies used:  Portfoilio Oil pastels, permapaque marker, pencil, pitt markers, typewriter.

Sunday Sketches

I saw something similar to these on the net so I had to give it a try.  Making these rings was really satisfying.

First in black and white.

Then I added some watercolor.  What fun this was to do.

You can check out other sketchers at Alex'x blog

My Art Journal This Week

Oil pastel playing, these are water-soluble but I didn't use water.

I used the Permapaque marker on this. The background was made with oil pastel and water.

I was dealing with fear yesterday, I had to put it in its place. The paper on top was a gelli print done on tyvek. I just cut up the pieces and played.  I used the scarlet lime pen on this.

Another page using layers of oil pastel, and some stenciling.

I had paint from my palette on the page in oranges and turquoise.  First I thought it looked like Sedona and then it seemed like a map. So I tried to turn it into Ireland.  Its not to scale or very accurate but it was still fun.  It should really be green and not orange but oh well.

This has everything under the sun on it.  Paint, oil pastel, spray ink, markers.  I thnk the top looks sort of planetary looking.

New Supplies

I learned about both of these new supplies from Julie Fei Fan Balzer.

I love this new pen. Its from Christy Tomlinson's shop Scarlet Lime and its the only place you can buy it. The story is she loved the pen and the manufacturer decided to drop it. So she had it produced and now sells it. I think that is pretty cool.

This is a new marker I heard about and it writes over anything.  It has a double tip and even works over oil pastel.

Linking to Paint Party Friday and Art Journal Everyday.

Gelli Fever

I've posted about gelli plate printing before and how much fun it is. I found my stash of papers the other day. Some of the prints I thought were not that pretty at all. I discovered it wasn't the whole page that parts of it looked great. So I decided to cut them up for ATC's. I don't make a lot of Artist Trading cards but thought these would be fun to have some backgrounds ready.

Once I started it was hard to stop.  I love some of these colors and patterns.

Then I thought of tags.  So I got out a vanilla tag and started tracing it on various papers. It was so fun to pick part of a design out and focus on a certain area.

I love the bright yellow with the black green and blue in this one.

The layers of color in this one are so varied and subtle.

More yellow and black that seems to pop off the page.

The set of four here all go together even thought they are different. In some of the patters I can't remember how I even made them.

I love the gold in the one on the right. These are going to be a blast to decorate.

This is one of my favorite ones.  There is something about that blob of red paint that speaks to me.

Another thing I thought that might be fun would be to cut the scraps up into inchies and then combining them together to make new patterns.  Its great when you find a treasure in your own studio. Do you ever find surprises that you didn't know you had?

Sunday Sketches

The hubby and I headed down to Pocatello a town an hour from here to have a Valentine lunch. We headed to McKenzie River Pizza Co.  They are building one in Idaho Falls but it taking forever to open.  So we headed south to go to the one that has just been built there. We became fans when our daughter was going to school in Montana. You can't get a good pizza around here so I was so excited when I heard they were going to build a location here.

While waiting for our food.  I drew this woman in a small notebook I carry in my purse.

Then I put some watercolor on her.

Here is the pizza I had. Alfredo sauce, spinach, fresh tomato and chicken, it was so good.

They gave us a free dessert, that is red velvet cake with creame inside.  Its too bad I had to share.

Afterwards I spent the night with an old favorite.  That's Humphrey Bogart with the Maltese Falcon.  Actually my cinema group met at my house for a showing of the 1941 classic. I love vintage films and this is one of the best. I watched this so many times as a kid with my parents, it reminded me of them so much. Good memories and fun times.

Check out Blue Chair Diary to see what others are sketching today.

Don't forget to enter my giveaway in this post

What I've Been Up To, And A Giveaway

I have barely managed to blog once a week lately and this is one of the reasons why.  I turn 60 this month, yikes just saying the number makes me feel old. And then I realize a lot of women don't get here and I am grateful for every year. When I turned fifty I celebrated in a big way by going to Europe with my daughter.  This year I would have loved to do that but didn't think it could happen.  My husband had other plans though.  For Valentine's Day and my birthday which is the 27th of this month, he gave me money to go to Ireland and England.  To do the research on my grandparents I have wanted to do for years. I am going in June so I have been perusing guidebooks and am up to my ears in travel plans. I am spending 2 weeks in Ireland and a week in England.

Here is a little history for those newer readers. My grandparents on my mothers side were both from Ireland. My grandmother had come to America in 1901 to look for work and she and my grandfather were promised to each other. He went to England for work. They wrote for 10 years. My grandmother traveled back in forth many times.  She was always trying to convince him to come to America, but he did not want to leave his family, mainly his father and younger brother. They did not see each other until 1910 when they finally married in Wigan England.  Then they immigrated to the US. I have all the letters they wrote.  My desire has been to write a book about them.  I have decided to travel to all the locations that they wrote from and to document that journey to be later put into a book.

I was all set to do this in 2010 but then I got cancer, I am fine now and but the money got spent and I didn't think I'd get to go anytime soon. So this gift is quite the blessing.  I am seeing the journey as a spiritual one, to go back to where my ancestors came from. Its going to be an amazing journey.

Birthday Giveaway

Now since its soon to be my birthday I am having another coaching giveaway, Just leave a comment on this post and I'll put you in the drawing.  You get 4 sessions of coaching with me. I'll pick a winner on February 27th.  To have more than once chance, post about it on FB or twitter and let me know that you did.

Being Bold

This is a page in my 21 Secrets journal.  I did it when Julie Fei Fan Balzer was the guest.  I made a stenciled background and then drew the face on with black marker.  That was hard to do.  I decided to just be bold.  Julie gave a great presentation and made it easy to just go for it.  I love that one eye is pink and the other is blue. This was fun.  I think I will try the technique more often.

In one of my other journals 3 sisters take a moonlit walk.It started with paint scraped and then the figures appeared.  I decided to put them out at night.

Linking to Paint Party Friday. Go here to see what other artists are doing today.

Playing With Auto Painter Plus

I have no painting to share today for Paint Party Friday but I have been playing with this new app in one of my art classes.

In my class Draw and Paint What You Love we have been playing with some apps. This one is called AutoPainter Express.

What you do is upload a picture and choose one of four painters and then that picture is painted using their style and colors.  This was Van Gogh's Starry Starry Night. It is pretty cool.

This is in Cezanne's style.

This one is called Aquarelle. It looks similar to the Cezanne one.

This last one is Benson. Its usually for landscapes but it still looks interesting on a face. This app can give you color and composition ideas that you can then take to your easel.  It is really fun to play with.

To see what other artists are doing for this day go here.